A collection of Edward's letters home to his mother during the Civil War can be viewed at: Edward G. Stevens' Civil War Letters. The letters chronicle historic events including the Siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of Franklin, the Battle of Nashville, the Election of 1864, and the Lincoln assassination, among other significant events.

Biography: Edward Griffin Stevens was born on March 19, 1842 to Robert Stevens and Emma Ann Griffin on High Street in Bideford England. The family emigrated from England to Prince Edward's Island around 1843 and then passed through Nova Scotia, Canada in the late 1840s and settled in Machias, Maine in either 1849 or 1850. From there they moved to Flushing, New York around 1852, finally settling in Aurora, Illinois in either 1855 or 1856. Throughout this period of continual movement, Edward's mother gave birth to additional siblings, with the youngest, Henry Clinton, born in 1856. It appears that ten children survived to adulthood.

Edward worked in a drug store in Aurora in the late 1850s - and at some point around 1860, he moved to Galesburg, Illinois - where his sister Kate M. Stevens Dyer also lived with her husband and younger sister Grace Stevens.

In the summer of 1862 - Edward enlisted in the Union Army as a Corporal (his daughter Leila recounted that he lied about his age at the time) and served as a soldier, druggist and clerk until the end of the war. After the war, he returned to Illinois and worked as a skilled painter (his daughter recalled he painted faux-marble facades for wealthy patrons). He was first married to Maggie Burns, but the marriage failed after only a few years, and he moved to Wilton, Iowa in the early to mid 1870s.

He married his second wife Josephine Neavitt in 1876 and they had five children together. Edward's pension records document that he struggled with heart trouble and rheumatism for decades - claiming that his service in the Civil War triggered his health problems. His birth date is also ever-changing in his pension claims - probably due to his initial mischaracterization of his age. Original birth records from England prove that he was, in fact, born on March 19, 1842. According to his death record, Edward was bedridden for the final two years of his life, and passed away on February 12, 1917.